Ray LaHood’s status: ‘Nothing to report’

The parlor game of speculating about Ray LaHood’s future has gone on too long for some DOT-watchers.

Many had expected to see the transportation secretary announce his departure ahead of President Barack Obama’s second term. But with just days to go before the Inauguration, LaHood hasn’t gone anywhere — or even said definitively whether he’s leaving or staying.

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“I get asked almost daily what I think Ray LaHood is going to do,” said Janet Kavinoky, the top transportation lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “And Ray LaHood has said he doesn’t have any answers for us.”

That holding pattern has essentially been in place since the fall of 2011, when the Chicago Tribune reported, without a direct quotation, that LaHood said he would be “staying in that job for one term only.” The Chicago Sun-Times picked up a similar theme Tuesday, citing a “top Obama source” to report that LaHood is “definitely” leaving office, perhaps in the next few months.

LaHood has long been privately telling people that he plans to leave at the end of Obama’s first term, sources tell POLITICO. But with the president’s Inauguration taking place Monday, LaHood will almost surely miss that deadline.

Neither the White House nor the Department of Transportation is offering any answers in public.

“We’re just not really getting into speculation on personnel announcements or discussion of internal decision making,” a White House official said, directing further inquiries to DOT.

DOT in turn pointed to comments LaHood made to reporters in December, when he said he and Obama had agreed after the election “to continue talking.” Reached by email on Monday, LaHood said simply, “Nothing to report.”

Though he has grown visibly tired of fielding endless questions on the topic, LaHood isn’t doing much to assuage reporters. At an event at a Washington public school Friday, LaHood referred to that same post-election chat he had with Obama, but was again vague about his future.

“I did have a good meeting with the president after the election, I sure did,” he told several reporters. “We talked a lot about what we’ve been doing the last four years and talked about high-speed rail. So we’ll see where it takes us.” LaHood declined to give a timeline on when he will make a decision.

But LaHood, who’s typically outgoing and friendly with reporters, might be under a gag order when it comes to breaking news about the future of DOT’s leadership. “I think it’s very clear that the White House is controlling the timing,” said a transportation source who knows the secretary.

Many observers had expected that after addressing the fiscal cliff and nominating the top tier of Obama’s new Cabinet — Defense, State and Treasury — the administration would pivot to filling out the next level of top advisers, including the transportation secretary.